Data center ban: Did New York make the right call?

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul understands what her constituents want, said Sara Pequeño in USA Today. The Democrat recently imposed a one-year moratorium on the construction of large AI data centers, giving state regulators breathing space to write new rules intended to limit the effect these “gigantic eyesores” have on power grids, water supplies, and local communities. It’s the “right move—and a politically savvy one.” While many lawmakers support data center projects, claiming they’ll “bring jobs and economic activity to their municipalities,” voters aren’t buying it. They know these buildings are noisy, generate a lot of air pollution, use up tons of water, and are causing electricity bills to skyrocket. More Democrats should follow Hochul’s example, said Tressie McMillan Cottom in The New York Times. In our “virulently partisan” era, “rage against data centers” is one of the only issues that unites ordinary voters on the Left and the Right. At the grassroots level, the opposition includes eco activists, soccer moms, farmers, and hardcore MAGA types. If Democrats can harness this energy and “anti-establishment sentiment,” they could create “a political movement that wins elections.”

This resistance is about more than just NIMBYism, said The Economist. A Pew survey from April found that “Americans who have merely heard of data centers are just as opposed to them as those who live within 5 miles of one.” It’s because of the fears of what data centers represent: the growth of artificial intelligence that could “doom humanity by hoovering up all its resources and paving Earth with servers.” Tech leaders are partly to blame for this mess, because they’ve spent years warning that their AI tools will “throw most people out of work” or be used to inflict “mass harm.” Now that the infrastructure needed to achieve their AI revolution “is arriving on people’s doorsteps,” who can blame Americans for wanting to slow the progress?

But this is “blocking development that would benefit” their communities, said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. New York’s green mandates and resistance to building new generation plants have reduced the state’s electricity supply and caused prices to rise—not AI data centers. Hochul also leaves out the fact that “data centers can also deliver a property tax windfall” along with thousands of jobs. AI is set to be “fracking all over again,” said the New York Post. New York banned the energy-extraction practice “on the basis of bogus environmental concerns,” and as a result the state lost out on “tens of thousands of jobs and literally trillions in wealth” that went next door to Pennsylvania. Now, billions of dollars in investment are going to AI-friendly Pennsylvania, all because “New York is banning progress.”

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